To Die For (something to live for)
by Emiliya Wolfe
Summary: Where does Kreacher go when Regulus - his best and only friend - leaves him alone with a burden to great to bear?


**Room Prompt: Write about a hidden room**

 **Optional prompt: wall**

 **Muggle Studies: Task Two: Write about someone who has an important task/mission/calling (Restriction: don't use Harry or the prophecy)**

 **Buttons (object) jewel**

 **Comoros - chocolate frogs (or Estonia) exquisite**

 **Simba - (emotion) betrayal**

 **834 words.**

 **Betaed by Writing Block.**

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Kreacher wiped his runny nose as he capered through the house as silently as possible. He mustn't wake the mistress. He couldn't wake the mistress.

How could he, at a time like this?

Instinctively, he clutched the locket to his chest, as cold as his master's last breaths.

Mustn't think about the young master.

Kreacher held his head up high to stop the snot from running down his upper lip, waiting until he had safely unlocked the hatch of his secret place to finally break down and blow his nose noisily into his tea cosey.

'Bad, bad Kreacher,' he scolded himself as the tears finally slipped from his eyes. 'Master Regulus gives you this cosey. He tells you to take care of it, that it's a present, even if it's not clothes.'

Pausing for a second, Kreacher took a moment to observe his ruined clothing, no longer white and fluffy, but smeared with dirt and tears that did not belong to him, no matter how many times he had begged the young master to let him drink the potion for him.

He stood that way for a long moment, lost in the horrific memories that would plague him night and day for the next twenty years. He wished he had never come back home that morning. He wished that Master Regulus had been less caring.

A glint of gold brought him out of his spiralling thoughts, and he turned his attention back to the locket. It was a simple gold chain, with a glittering green snake inlaid on the lid in exquisite jewels. It was heavy, though. Not like some of the delicate jewelry that the Mistress laid out by her bedside every night.

It was shiny; Kreacher would give it that. Almost as shiny as his precious possessions, all lined up neatly against the walls of his secret room. Kreacher's eyes lingered in particular on a framed photo he had been able to salvage in the wake of Master Sirius's betrayal. It was of the whole family — all four of them. Master Regulus had been the one to suggest Kreacher take the picture, so that Walburga could join in the family portrait that time. The Mistress had destroyed all sign of Sirius's presence once he had left, all except this one trophy.

As Kreacher looked at it — at Sirius laughing as he tickled Regulus, at Regulus as he tried to stay serious for the camera, and at Orion, putting on a stern face in front of Walburga, but breaking into a broad grin whenever she wasn't looking — he felt a little bit dizzy.

He sat down with a thump on the satin bedsheets that the Mistress had proclaimed too old to be able to be used, clumping it in his fists to anchor himself back to reality.

He looked around at the home that Master Regulus had built him when he realised that Kreacher didn't have a bedroom to call his own.

There was his collection of chocolate frogs, that "only needed to be opened in case of emergencies". Back when the young master had been small enough to crawl into Kreacher's secret room with him, the boy and the elf had silently nibbled at the sweets as Walburga and Orion fought over what to do with their more troublesome son.

There was the candlestick that the Mistress had thrown at him, telling him that every time he failed the family, he must use it against himself until he was a better elf. It was worn in places, but still very much intact, something Kreacher was rather proud of.

Finally, there was the Slytherin scarf that Master Regulus had brought back, so that Kreacher wouldn't feel too cold and alone in the dark winter months, when he lost his closest companion and only friend. Master Regulus would tell him that he didn't know a house-elf at Hogwarts that did a better job than Kreacher of folding his clothes, and Kreacher took that as the highest compliment.

And all throughout his inspections, Kreacher found that his mouth had opened in a silent scream, suddenly angry at Master Regulus for having left — but especially for having left him — because life suddenly seemed cold and empty, and no Slytherin scarf would comfort him in the long winter months to come because he knew that the young master would not be coming back in the summer.

The locket glinted again, mocking Kreacher for his helplessness, and the sudden light reminded Kreacher that there was one thing left that Master Regulus had entrusted him with, one thing that must remain secret, but was important enough to die for. Important enough for Master Regulus to die for. And that meant it was important enough for Kreacher to give his life to.

'I has a job to do,' he whispered to himself, looking down at the source of all his misery.

And Kreacher was damned if he was going to fail Master Regulus's last wishes.


End file.
